Acallam na Senórach

Acallam na Senórach (Colloquy of the Ancients), a monastic compilation of materials from the Fionn cycle, made in the late 12th cent. The narrative tells how Oisín, son of Fionn, and Caoilte, son of Rónán, the last surviving warriors of the Fianna, emerge from the woods of the Fews Mountains, to encounter St Patrick, engaged on his Christian mission. The priests with Patrick are frightened by these strange-looking men with their enormous wolfhounds; when the saint exorcises the warriors, legions of devils leave them. Patrick and Caoilte then travel Ireland together, the old pagan narrating the lore of places that they pass [see dinnshenchas], interweaving myth and legend as he interprets the terrain. The travellers complete their circuit ending at Tara and the court of the High King Diarmait mac Cerbaill, where they find Oisín has arrived before them. The Feast of Tara (Feis Temrach) is in progress, and both warriors tell of the brave deeds of their former comrades. With its glorification of a legendary past, and its perception of Ireland as a storied landscape, the Acallam is a characteristic and central group of texts in Irish literature.

Bibliography

Nessa Ní Shéaghdha Agallamh na Seanórach (3 vols., 1942-5).

ModIr. Agallamh na Seanórach, Agallamh na Seanóirí
[Irish, the colloquy of the elders, old men]

An Irish narrative of the Fenian Cycle composed between 1175 and 1200 and preserved in the 15th-century manuscript Book of Lismore and elsewhere.

The Acallam is set many generations after the death of Fionn mac Cumhaill, the central figure of the Fenian Cycle. Two survivors, Oisín and Caílte, along with a few companions, are wandering glumly in northern Leinster. At first Oisín departs for the north to visit his mother while Caílte and the others continue. After crossing the Boyne River to Druim Dearg, they meet St Patrick, with whom they discuss the values of pre-Christian Ireland. The focus of the colloquy is Fionn mac Cumhaill, who is also Oisín's father. As St Patrick travels west and south through Ireland, Caílte explains the names of the places they visit, much in the manner of the Dindshenchas. Sometimes Caílte can give an older name for a place than the one now in use. Some of this may reflect the juncture Irish society then faced, with the amalgamation of Norman invaders into Gaelic culture. Oisín joins the party and adds more of the heroic deeds of Fionn and the Fianna, but Caílte is usually portrayed as the more important of the two pagans. Often the saint-pagan dialogue serves only as a frame to introduce stories of the Fianna. The narrative, in both prose and verse, has an Arthurian flavour, especially in the repeated mention of the generosity of Fionn. A general anticlerical humour often portrays St Patrick as a bigot, pronouncing the doom of hell upon the Fenians. At times St Patrick seems more tolerant, willing to trade Christian learning for ancient lore. The temper of the work is cheerful, in spite of Caílte's loneliness, decrepitude, and regard for the lost heroic past.

Many critics regard the Acallam as one of the most successful works in Middle Irish.

Early Modern Irish text: Agallamh na Seanórach, ed. Nessa Ní Shéaghdha (3 vols., Dublin, 1942–5); Modern Irish text: Agallamh na Seanóiri, ed. Pádraig de Barra (Dublin, 1984); Myles Dillon, Stories from the Acallam (Dublin, 1970). See also Darrell Figgis's novel based on the story Return of the Hero (London, 1923; New York, 1930).